[__rito__]

Well, I am in and from India, and I receive several scam calls a month from India.

Indians, by number of victims, are the biggest victims of Indian scammers. Several people I know personally have been burned.

Our phone numbers are in several lists, and they get leaked.

I think one solution to this is strict data privacy laws. If there is a list with phone numbers/addresses, it should be subject to highest level of care and security. Or there should be laws banning collection of phone numbers unless absolutely needed.

No amount of spreading awareness seems to work. The local law enforcement of the exact two states in India where the domestic scammers are from are also "involved".

[hnbad]

I live in Germany, famous for having among the strictest privacy laws.

I still get occasional scam calls a few times each month, often using mobile phone numbers or fraudulent VOIP numbers registered in Austria. They usually hang up as soon as you push back on their claim that they got the phone number "from the database, maybe you participated in a contest once" when prompted with the question of how they got your number. The callers are mostly women with Eastern European accents.

I suspect my number ended up in a list when it was leaked in a Facebook data leak because I had to connect it once for account recovery/verification.